A statement issued by the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine last week calling for a Yes vote in the referendums on Family and Care “was an error”, a spokesperson has said.
On Wednesday, a press release titled ‘Minister McConalogue advocates YES vote amongst the farming community’ was sent from the departmental email account.
The department was not aware of the statement, a spokesperson said, adding that “the press release should not have been sent from a department account”.
Under the McKenna judgement, public money cannot be used to advocate for one side of a referendum argument.
The Family and Care referendums were defeated at the weekend, with 67.69% and 73.93% of people voting against the respective amendments.
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